Applications of High Energy Theory to Superconductivity and Cosmic Inflation

• Main Author: Wang, Zhen
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: W&M ScholarWorks 2016
• Subjects: Physics
• Online Access: https://scholarworks.wm.edu/etd/1477068207; https://scholarworks.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1066&context=etd

This dissertation examines applications of methods of high-energy theory to other physical systems: unconventional superconductors on the one hand, and cosmology on the other. Extra-dimensional models of superconductors, motivated by gauge/gravity duality in string theory, have proven remarkably successful in reproducing qualitative, and sometimes quantitative, aspects of unconventional superconductors. We analyze the universality of some of these predictions, and discover a universal relation between certain superconducting observables. The second part of this dissertation is about cosmic inflation. The evolution of the universe is sensitive to the fundamental particles and their interactions. We investigate models of cosmic inflation which involve the dynamics of one or more axion fields, and we explain how such models might be related to the flavor structure of the standard model.